New Partnership for Africa's Development

New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)

According to their website "NEPAD is designed to address the current challenges facing the African continent. Issues such as the escalating poverty levels, underdevelopment and the continued marginalisation of Africa needed a new radical intervention, spearheaded by African leaders, to develop a new Vision that would guarantee Africa’s Renewal." 

According to Patrick Bond writing in 2002, South African president Thabo Mbeki "and Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo, the plan’s two main backers, are considered disingenuous for `talking left’ on human rights and democracy, while `acting right,’ by endorsing Mugabe’s election as `legitimate’ so as to maintain unity amongst African rulers." Bond adds that "Nepad evolved under conditions of smoke-filled-room secrecy, in close contact with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair (several times during 2000), the G8 (in Okinawa in 2000 and Genoa in 2001), the Bretton Woods Institutions (in repeated meetings) and international capital (at Davos in 2001). As a result, the plan denies the rich contributions of African social struggles in its very genesis. Instead, it empowers transnational corporations, Northern donor agency technocrats, Washington financial agencies, Geneva trade bureaucrats, machiavellian Pretoria geopoliticians and Johannesburg capitalists, in a coy mix of imperialism and South African subimperialism." 

Contact

 * Web: http://www.nepad.org

Related Sourcewatch

 * Wiseman Nkuhlu
 * Cosmas Ochieng